What is Google Wave?

Its new from Google and a bit different for sure. Sure this is more an likely not meant for everyone to use an try. Its not going to replace e-mails at all. But for a planning tool, this could be worth a try and come in handy if a whole team is using it.

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2009 World Series Champions

Ready, set, write now...

That's right, its that time of year and NaNoWriMo is in effect once again. The time is now for all of those aspiring writers and creators out there, with feelings and ideas inside of their heads to tell a story. Get busy and let it all go, release that creative spirit and let it take course.

During the month of November you need to write every day and let what happen come out on paper. Its not about quality as much as quantity and getting a rough draft of a story out. We are shooting for 50,000 words over the next 30 days, that is only 1667 words each day now.

Think of it as about 30 chapters of an epic tale even. You just need to write daily and let something happen. At the end its going to be rough, did I mention it would be rough? Yes it will be rough and the following month you can go back an read and edit if you like.

The following month is for edits, don't edit as you go or you'll bog down an never reach your goal. Get your characters and settings created and let them explore and reveal the story.

Think about it as when you played as a kid and the worlds you created an situations that came up. Believe it or not you were more or less a story teller at that time even and you had a beginning, middle and end to your playtime... well depending on what you played I suppose.

In the end you can do this and its pretty cool to see what can happen after 30 days time. You'll have a rough draft of a story idea for sure and something to go back and write over again.

This is my 3rd year at this in a row and failure is not an option for me. Best of luck to all the others out there who have a story idea and dare to let it come out now.

Art imitates life... you hearing me?

So I saw this movie trailer last night for an upcoming movie called Pirate Radio and I can't wait to see it now. I think the movie has a lot going for it, well in my opinion at least. It's a British film and I like a lot of those movies for one. It also has a number of actors I've grown to like as well. That comes from watching a lot of British Films of course.

Anyway, after watching it, I thought it appeared to have been based on real life events. In fact its sets in the sixties and turns out to be loosely based on a ship that broadcast under the name Radio Caroline.

Reading up on this movie led me to the web site for Radio Caroline and I began to really learn some of the facts that the movie was based on. What is really cool is that this very old Broadcast Channel is still on the air today and playing some really good tunes.

In this day where things tend to be mainly All Talk and our Media moves at a very fast pace, its refreshing to find a station that reminds me of the older days of spinning just music in most cases and then hearing a DJ come on an talk a little bit about whats being played.

It just happens to be a plus for me to hear some British accents from the DJ. I grew up on the format of most of these old Classic rock songs. I think I've found a new Internet Live Stream to listen to from time to time at least and I'm looking forward to the movie and learning more about the real life events surrounding Radio Caroline.

Here's a trailer for the upcoming movie Pirate Radio.

The Narrative

Perhaps one of the oldest forms of communication and entertainment of all time is the Narrative. The art of story telling can be traced as far back as the Cave drawings in some cases. The recording of these thoughts & ideas can tell both a story and provide a history for us to learn or be entertained by.

Fact is the Narrative can be seen in works of writing, speech, poetry, prose, pictures, song, motion pictures, theatre, dance, and even video games. All of these forms have a common thread and end result, the telling of a story and hopefully something that can be moving and entertaining in the end.

Why do I write all of this, well its that time again for many of us that lover taking part in this form of Communication for starters. NaNoWriMo is a few weeks away and people all over will strive to create a new story for the first time or perhaps once again in my case then.

Some of us might actually enjoy the end results and experiencing the finished Narrative, but on the other hand some of us like to provide the Narrative and tell a story on the other hand.

OK, I'm in no way looking to quit my day job, yet at the same time I not only have a passion for experiencing all forms of Narratives, I'm actually feeling like creating some, at least for myself in the end.

This will actually be my third NaNoWriMo in a row and I can say that I've safely created and completed the first two. NaNoWriMo is the creation of a 50,000 word Novel, a rough draft of a Narrative in the end. Someday I'd like to perhaps go back and rework them all and polish them up and perhaps even have them printed in a very limited run or one copy each even.

In the end I can feel good about the process and feel I have a better appreciation of the art form and what it takes to create a work. Wish me luck and I do the same to all those that take up the challenge in creating a Narrative as well.

I know how the support guy feels

This one is a hoot for sure. If you've ever had to do any Tech Support for someone, then you more and likely understand what is going on here.

Uverse with HDMI and TOSlink for the Win

A recent update from Uverse has done more than just making things look pretty, we now can hear everything as it should be. A little over a week ago I noticed the Aspect ratio on my TV was off and when I went to investigate or reset things, I noticed the menus had been updated.

I thought to myself, they had to have done more than give us a different feel for the guide areas. I've been busy with a horse show and haven't had much time to watch anything by the time I make it home. But this last week of the show I've made it home earlier and last night I was able to test out some things.

I made sure my Aspect Ratio was correct and enabled the Dolby Audio under the preferences for Uverse. My set is connected with HDMI and I have a TOSlink running to my faithful Sony Receiver for my audio needs.

Last night I watched Underworld: Evolution in HD off the FXHD channel and the audio was solid and never dropped. Its only taken them almost a year to fix the audio problems we use to have. I think we will enjoy a lot more shows with this problem behind us now.

The big claim from Uverse is to give the best digital entertainment experience and for me audio is a big part. Most of the techs seemed to think HDMI was not the way to go an it also sounded like a number of users did not use TOSlink for Dolby 5.1 sound as well.

Finally a fix has come down and things are like they are suppose to be. In addition to the audio fix, the update also added features to set recordings from any set top box as well as delete recordings from those boxes; another plus in my eyes and I no longer have to run back to the living room and remember which shows I watched to delete them.

If you've been on the fence about Uverse or heard about some of their issues, you might take another look and find the service is finally as good as its suppose to have been.